State House News -- Brown's press on Warren's legal work draws retort about his own clients

Wednesday

Sep 26, 2012 at 12:01 AMSep 26, 2012 at 11:57 PM

Democrat Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday gave no indication that she planned to release the list of corporate clients she has represented over her career, suggesting the demand from U.S. Sen. Scott Brown rang hollow given his own inability to disclose his legal clients over the years.

Matt Murphy, State House News Service

Democrat Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday gave no indication that she planned to release the list of corporate clients she has represented over her career, suggesting the demand from U.S. Sen. Scott Brown rang hollow given his own inability to disclose his legal clients over the years.

Warren also repeatedly said she was “appalled” by videos captured at Brown rallies depicting the senator’s supporters making Native American war whooping calls, including a new video that surfaced Wednesday with Brown in attendance and saying nothing about the chants.

“Since I went into public service in 2008 I have released all of my financial disclosure. I have released all of my client contacts. And I must say I’m a little surprised to hear this from Senator Brown. As I understand it he has been in public service now for 25 years and has never released the name of a single client,” Warren said at a South Boston rally where she received the endorsement of International Association of Fire Fighters and the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts.

Stepping up his strategy of highlighting Warren’s past work for corporate clients such as Travelers Insurance and LTV Steel, Brown wrote a letter to his Democratic rival on Wednesday asking her to fully disclose the list of legal cases she’s been involved with.

“Voters deserve to know your full involvement in these types of cases,” Brown wrote. “I am calling on you to provide a complete accounting of your corporate legal clients during your years at Harvard. On multiple occasions in the past, you have declined similar requests.”

Brown noted that Warren declined a similar request form the Boston Globe in May, and said her earnings of close to $250,000 from those corporate clients were “at odds with the image you portray on the campaign trail fighting for the middle class and the little guy.”

According to Warren’s campaign, the Harvard law professor is not licensed to practice in Massachusetts, but is a member of the Texas bar and is licensed to practice in federal court and before the Supreme Court. She recently gave up her membership to the New Jersey bar.

Warren said Brown’s focus on her legal record had more to do with the senator wanting to avoid a debate on his record in the U.S. Senate than about the work she did before the Supreme Court in both cases.

“I think what he’s trying very hard to do is not talk about his own votes. And let’s do the count. So far he’s come after my family. He’s come after my teaching. He’s come after my going to the United States Supreme Court and that’s because Scott Brown does not want to talk about his votes for millionaires, his votes for billionaires, his votes for big oil his votes against working people,” Warren said.

While Warren represented Travelers Insurance before the Supreme Court and wrote to the court on behalf of LTV Steel in the 1990s seeking protections for both companies against future lawsuits or payments to a health care trust fund for mine workers, Warren has argued she was defending legal bankruptcy principles that would allow a greater pool of workers to have access to benefits and compensation.

Asked about the critical comment the late Sen. Edward Kennedy once made about LTV Steel, Warren said, “Sen. Kennedy and I both spoke out against how LTV Steel had treated its workers. We were both concerned about pensions and how they were treated in bankruptcy . . . We were on the same side.”

Brown’s campaign did not respond Wednesday morning to questions about whether Brown had ever disclosed his own legal clients while a member of the Massachusetts Senate, or if he would. Though Brown’s current bar status is listed as “inactive” in Massachusetts, the senator reported on Senate financial disclosure forms earning $58,000 in 2009 and $81,000 in 2008 from his law practice in Wrentham.

A new video posted online Wednesday by Blue Mass. Group showed Brown at a backyard rally over the summer talking about Warren’s claims to Cherokee heritage. He did not stop or condemn what sounds like Native American “whooping” sounds in the background. The tape follows the release of a similar video shot by a Massachusetts Democratic Party tracker last weekend capturing a Brown staffer and a MassGOP staffer making similar sounds and doing a “tomahawk chop.”

Brown on Tuesday said he had not seen the video, but did not condone the behavior and would tell his staffer “never to do it again.”

Bill John Baker, the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, released a statement denouncing the actions of Brown’s staffer and supporters, saying a campaign that “would allow and condone such offensive and racist behavior must be called to task for their actions.”

“The conduct of these individuals goes far beyond what is appropriate and proper in political discourse. The use of stereotypical ‘war whoop chants’ and ‘tomahawk chops’ are offensive and downright racist. It is those types of actions that perpetuate negative stereotypes and continue to minimize and degrade all native peoples,” said Baker, who was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and has defended Warren on questions about her heritage in the past.

A Brown spokeswoman also did not immediately respond to request for comment on the Cherokee Nation statement, or the new video.